Chapter 4: The Ca-RAVE-an
The Ice King paced excitedly within his frozen fortress home.
“Oh just you wait Princess, this wedding's gonna be tops. I'll get all the penguins and snow golems to help out and we'll have a real bash!”
Princess Bubblegum gripped the ice bars of her prison.
“Yeah, I'm super excited...” she said in her flattest possible voice.
The Ice King gave her a hurt look. “Something the matter, honeybunch? I don't want the bride-to-be feeling anything but comfortable and at ease on the night before her wedding, ya know.”
“Comfortable and at ease?” Princess Bubblegum said indignantly. “Then why do you have me in a prison cell!?!”
“We've been over this sweetheart,” explained the Ice King cooly. “You can't be trusted. But I love you anyway, despite your many faults.”
Princess Bubblegum groaned and turned to face the corner of her cell. Maybe if I could just get my head around the situation... she thought. If Finn were here, he would have already broken in and socked the Ice King in his wrinkly old face! Who knows how far Jake'll get on his own? Or if my stupid braclet had worked...
Then an idea came to her. The Princess turned around and gave the Ice King a pleasant smile.
“You know,” she said in an alluring voice. “If you want our wedding to be perfect, we still have a lot of planning to do.”
“Well I can't hel-wha?!?” said the Ice King disbelievingly.
Princess Bubblegum giggled. “I'm the princess of the Candy Kingdom! You don't think you can just treat me like some old hag from the woods do you? Our wedding's going to need class! Gifts! We need to make it an event for all of Ooo to remember forever!”
The Ice King was stunned. Then his face contorted into an enormous grin. “I knew you'd come around! Alright, future Mrs. Ice King, where do we begin?”
“We need our wedding rings, silly!” said the Princess.
“Yes of course! I've got some old...”
“No,” interrupted the Princess. “We need new, flashy rings. Important people have big flashy things, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” reasoned the Ice King.
The Princess gasped with as much excitement as she could force. “No! We need something even bigger and flashier than rings. Let's have wedding bracelets! That way we can fit all kinds of junk on them!”
The Ice King looked a little overwhelmed. “I don't know, Princess. This is sounding expensive...”
“Oh don't worry about that, I've got everything I'd need to make all sorts of flashy gems back in my laboratory!”
The Ice King considered her point for a moment. “Wait a minute...” he said. “I'm not gonna just let you waltz back home, how do I know you'd come back? Nice try Princess, I'll go get your lab stuff myself!”
“Fine,” Princess Bubblegum said. “Here's what I'm going to need...”
…
“And then I was like, it's been four weeks you lazy bum!”
“What are you talking about, Pinkie?” Jake asked.
“Huh?” said the pink earth pony. “Oh, nevermind, it's not important anymore.”
“Um, okay?”
Jake the dog and Pinkie Pie were making their trek across the Grasslands en route to the Ice Kingdom. It was a journey Jake had made many times. Heck, Finn and Jake hardly even begrudged the Ice King for it anymore, it was just a fact of life that the Ice King would kidnap a princess and they'd have to go rescue her. However, this was the first time Jake had ever gone without Finn.
Truth be told, he was a little nervous. Sure, Jake could grow huge with his stretchy powers and just wreck up the place until they found the Princess, but the Ice King was magic, and Jake was never good at dealing with magic. He didn't have that same reckless courage that Finn had. Finn could just throw caution to the wind and punch problems until they went away.
“So what's the plan, Jake?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I'm not used to adventuring a lot like this. Well, I guess every now and then a dragon or demi-god will come around and mess up Ponyville, but that's not too often. Mostly I just worry about making sure everypony is having fun!”
“Well,” Jake began, “I know where the Ice King is probably keeping the Princess. The best I can figure, we've got to sneak in, I'll finagle the locks a bit with my key hand-” Jake changed his hand into the shape of a key, “we get PB, and head home so we can get to work on rescuing Finn. We've got to be careful though. The Ice King has crazy ice powers than can freeze us if we're not careful. Also, some of those penguins can be outright vicious.”
“Hmmm,” said Pinkie Pie. “Maybe we could get them all together at a party! It would be a distraction party, with games and cake, the works!”
“Pinkie, that's crazy-” Jake started, before thinking about just who the Ice King was, “enough to work! But how are we gonna throw a party? We've just got you, me, and whatever we can pick up along the way.”
Pinkie shrugged. “Maybe we could ask those guys for help?”
Jake was about to ask who she was referring to before seeing a line of horse drawn wagons in the distance. Fireworks shot up from the wagons, sparkling brightly. Jake hadn't realized it, but there was a faint hint of music ahead.
“They look like they know how to party,” said Pinkie approvingly.
“Let's go check it out,” said Jake, dropping down to all fours as the ran to the wagons.
The music swelled as they drew nearer. It was a catchy dance beat that Pinkie began to bounce along to. Everywhere around the wagons, small bears were dancing and lighting off fire works. Many of them were carrying around honey energy drinks.
“Hey, I know these guys!” Jake shouted over the music.
“Cool!” Pinkie shouted back. “I love their music!”
A taller bear wearing a fedora made his way to the front of the party-goers.
“Jake!” he called. “Jake! It's been too long man!”
Jake resumed his two legged stance and fist bumped the bear. “What's up, Party Pat! Haven't seen you since we all almost got killed by lava in that monster's stomach!”
Party Pat straightened his fedora. “Yeah, had some good times in that stomach! But alas, there's so much partying left to be had elsewhere in this world, so we took our show on the road. Welcome to Party Pat's Ca-RAVE-an!”
“Hey Party Pat!” interrupted Pinkie Pie. “Awesome part-ay you got going here! From one party master to another!”
Party Pat blinked twice. “Did that pony just talk?”
“Did that pony just talk?” repeated Pinkie Pie. She nudged a nearby horse. “Can you believe this guy? Ha, did I just talk...”
“Uh, Pinkie?” said Jake. “Horses and ponies don't really talk around here, they're just animals for the most part.”
Pinkie looked back at the horse. It whinnied, then lowered its head to graze.
“Creepy...” she said with a disturbed look on her face. “Wait, just animals? You're a talking bear! And you're a talking dog for that matter!”
“It's complicated,” said Jake. It was hard to distinguish the smart animals from the dumb animals in Ooo sometimes.
“Far out,” said Party Pat. “I've never met a talking pony before. A rainicorn once, but that's not too big a deal. Pleased to meet you, miss...?”
“Pinkie Pie!” said the earth pony, sticking her hoof out. Party Pat grabbed it and shook cordially.
“Well Pinkie,” he said, gesturing out to his ca-RAVE-an, “My party is your party! Grab a drink and enjoy some games!”
“Sounds like fun!” said Pinkie, grabbing a honey drink from a nearby bear. She then bumped flanks with some dancing bears before wandering off to explore the rest of the wandering party.
“She's got spirit,” said Party Pat approvingly.
“Hey man,” said Jake. “I need to call in a solid favor.”
Party Pat lifted an eye brow.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The Ice King nabbed Princess Bubblegum, and we need a distraction to get into his fortress.”
“What happened to Finn?” asked Party Pat. “This is his kind of deal, right?”
“Finn got mixed up in some kind of Pony dimension,” said Jake. “That's where Pinkie came from. We need to get PB back since she's the only one who can help Finn out. Oh, I'm also pretty sure the Ice King is going to try and marry her against her will.”
“That's pretty messed up,” said Party Pat with a slight frown. He thought for a moment, and then smiled.
“Well, I suppose we can't let them rush into the wedding without an engagement party, can we?”
“No,” Jake agreed. “We can't. What did you have in mind?”
“Give me a second,” said Party Pat. He pulled himself on to the top of a wagon and gestured the DJ bear to kill the music.
“What's up party people!?!” he bellowed out to the bears. There was a loud round of cheers from the bears, and a high, lone “Yippee!” from the back.
“We have truly brought the funk out to the Grasslands today!” he shouted. “But next, we're heading to some place a little cooler. In fact, it's going to be downright chill! We're taking this party on to the Ice Kingdom, baby!”
There was more cheering from the bears, as some jumped into wagons and pulled out little sweaters, hats, and snowboards. The music kicked back on.
Party Pat turned to Jake and quietly said, “This is going to be a night to remember for that old popsicle alright.”
“Party Pat,” said Jake while dancing along to the music. “Why don't we hang out more?”
“Beats me, baby,” replied the bear, losing himself in the music as well.
...
Hey guys, sorry this update took so long! If you're curious about what I've been doing in the meantime, my entry in the February write-off should be available for examination soonish. The next chapter will probably continue on from here instead of shooting back to Finn and Ponyville. A lot of the feel this chapter comes from Adventure Time rather than Friendship is Magic, so I hope it was still enjoyable to those unfamiliar with Adventure Time. And don't worry, an update will come along quicker this time. Pinkie wouldn't let me hear the end of it otherwise....
Art Used: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/267/5/6/the_ice_king_by_yuji28go-d4atfgj.png
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/100/b/6/partying_in_a_monster__s_tummy_by_detectivetoony-d3dpol6.png
